I should add that I think the terminator line was mentioned by that name in the story. I think part of why I remember the story is that this was the first time I heard the term.
– Henrik NOct 4 '16 at 20:31

Some decades ago, I read a short story where an astronaut stranded on the moon had to keep running to stay in sunlight so his solar-powered suit would keep working until rescue came. I wasn't able to find any reference with Google, but maybe this will help someone else find it.
– Trip Space-ParasiteDec 10 '18 at 20:44

8 Answers
8

You didn't give us much to go on, but it is possible that you are remembering Larry Niven's short story: "Wait it Out."

As the story opens, the first-person narrator is already trapped on the surface of Pluto. The extreme cold has put him into a form of cryogenic sleep -- when it's "night," meaning the narrator's part of the surface is turned away from the sun, his body is essentially at absolute zero as I recall, and he is completely oblivious to what's happening around him.

Whenever that bit of Pluto is facing the sun again (technically "daytime," although it doesn't get very bright when you're that far from the sun), he warms up just enough for his central nervous system to function at a minimal level. He can see what is happening in front of him, and can think about it. (He can't so much as twitch a muscle, however.) But it's his calculation that he is thinking and perceiving things very, very, very slowly -- so slowly that he may be able to "wait it out" until, several years from now, a rescue ship might finally show up from Earth to try to recover and defrost him.

So you could say that the terminator line is important to the plot -- the only times when the narrator is capable of thought are the times when the planet has recently rotated to put the sun "above the horizon" again.

You mentioned that there may previously have been another person on this planet with the main character. In "Wait it Out," we learn the narrator had been one of two astronauts who landed on Pluto. When something damaged their landing vessel so they couldn't take off again, the other guy opened up his spacesuit helmet as a means of committing a quick suicide. But the narrator decided that if he stripped off his suit entirely, very fast, he might be preserved (rather than simply killed, as you or I would expect) by the extreme cold.

This story tells of engineer Colin Sherrard on an expedition as part of the International Astrophysical Decade, which is intended to get a research spaceship within seventeen million miles of the Sun, shielded by the asteroid Icarus.

Travelling in his one-man mechanical pod, he suffers an accident and loses consciousness. When he comes to, he is not sure where he is - nor are the explorers in the mother ship. His pod is damaged and his communications are unreliable. Just as he is about to fry in the heat of the sun, he finds that he cannot even commit suicide as the controls don't respond [...]

Actually, that story (whether it's the one you want or not) is available to listen to on the BBC's Listen Again service right now (for listeners in the UK, at any rate):

And I'll add Nightside City by Lawrence Watt-Evans to the longshot pile. This is basically a detective novel set on a tidally locked planet. The protagonist is desperate to get off-planet before its economy collapses. Very noir.

But, given the "left behind" and prisoner possibilities, yeah, Riddick seems like a strong contender. I'd vote against Wait it out which doesn't really have a terminator theme.

Possibly Cold Storage by Donald Franson. I found it in Nebula #38 but may well have been anthologised since.

Gard Lorus, a war criminal, wakes up in a habitat on an airless world, with supplies for a month, and a note saying that these will suffice while he awaits liberation.

He is delighted that he can expect to be sprung so soon, though surprised because when they last spoke, the note's author had said that "If I ever get my hands on you, you'll fry". Evidently though, he must have been overruled.

But he has overlooked one thing.

(This was written in 1959, when Mercury was believed to keep the same face to the Sun, but the terminator line supposedly wobbled due to Mercury's orbit not being circular, and this "libration" allowed the Sun to pop up above the horizon in that area). ................................................ "Quickly removing his spacesuit, he searched for the letter, and it confirmed his fears. He had misread it the first time. It didn't say "liberation", it said "libration". . . . So now the Sun, less than forty million miles away, was about to rise over the airless horizon of Mercury. Sandstorm was right. He would fry."

Thank you! This sounds quite promising. I'l see if I can track it down.
– Henrik NFeb 21 '18 at 15:02

It's on the Internet Archive at archive.org/details/Nebula_38_1959-01 . You'll need to register but it's free. The original magazine is available on amazon.co.uk but they want £8 for it so I'd try the Archive first.
– Mike StoneFeb 21 '18 at 16:31

The story also sounds a little like the Stargate SG1 episode about the planet where the day and night doesn't move and those on the dark side are actually mutated by an allergic reaction - the whole of SG1 suffers except daniel who remains on the planet, Daniel also suffers from this but it was delayed by the anti histamine he used for hayfever.

This might be Wheel of the Winds by M.J. Engh. A single man (a human of Earth descent) is on a tide-locked planet, and the only way he knows to get off the planet is a lander at the "cold pole" -- a place the natives of the world never go. The book follows his efforts (from the POV of a native he hires to take him) to get to a place the natives have never gone before.